


The Princess, the WIzard and the Frog

by travellinghopefully



Series: Whouffaldi Fanfiction Countdown [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 08:39:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4699478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/travellinghopefully/pseuds/travellinghopefully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whouffaldi week 2 prompt fill<br/>It doesn't really look that sturdy! Come down from there!</p><p>I wrote something almost immediately and then became stuck</p><p>Very, very, very fluffy, some angst....happy ending.....possibly....maybe....</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Princess, the WIzard and the Frog

The Princess entered the wizard’s tower. The wizard sat surrounded by books.

“I want a book,” she said.

She did not say please.

“I have many,” he said, “but not for the likes of you.” 

The Princess was notoriously impatient, and rather spoiled, and she hadn’t learned that people could say “no” to her.

She decided the wizard was very rude and that she definitely didn’t like him and she positively did not notice the twinkle in his captivating eyes.

The wizard showed her out and shut the door and checked the sign that said “no visitors”.

The wizard sat up late into the night, his books for company, not thinking about the extraordinarily pretty princess, as that would be irrelevant to his studies. The candle eventually burned low, flickered and went out, and the wizard was asleep.

The petulant Princess waited at the edge of the enchanted forest that surrounded the wizard’s tower. She waited for the very last light to wink out, as she did she became cold and uncomfortable, which she decided was entirely the wizards fault. He really was a very inconvenient man, why shouldn’t she have the book she wanted? She stamped her foot and glared at passing owl as a large drip of icy water found its way down the back of her neck. Putting her plan into action, she paused and decided she would petition her father the king and have the wizard banished, or imprisoned in the deepest dungeons. Yes, that would do. 

She wasn’t a very nice princess, although she might have been if she hadn’t been so spoiled.

All the poor wizard wanted to do was read in his tower.

The Princess opened the door, and climbed the tower, and tiptoed past the snoring wizard. She climbed the ladder up to the tallest shelf, stretched out her hand for the book she desired....

......................................................................

The Doctor woke suddenly from the strangest dream. Not that he had been asleep, merely resting his eyes. Sleep was for pudding brains.

He rolled his head on his shoulders, looked round and saw Clara on the library ladder.

“Clara! Clara! What are you doing? It doesn’t really look that sturdy. Come down from there!”

“Rubbish Doctor, it’s perfectly safe.” She poked her tongue out at him.

Stretching out her arm a little further, she reached for the red book with the gold embossing. Her fingertips just closed on the book, there was a crack, the steps collapsed under her. As she fell she grabbed for the shelf and pulled it down, crashing to the floor, books everywhere.

“CLARA!”

The Doctor shot from his chair and raced to the pile of books. He flung each one aside, struggling to reach Clara. He moved the collapsed shelf, the broken ladder, piled up the books, turned round.

“CLARA!”

She was gone. That simply wasn’t possible.

He scanned the books, the shelf, the floor, the ladder, the books again.

There was no Clara.

He questioned the TARDIS, he searched the TARDIS. He searched the library again.

There was no Clara.

There was a frog. A small, green frog. A non-descript frog. There had not been a frog before. Probably.

He scanned the frog. The frog appeared to be a frog.

He looked at the books. It was logical to assume that the frog was from a book about frogs and Clara was in that book.

The Doctor read Grimm’s Fairy Tales, he read the Tale of Jeremy Fisher, a ridiculous rhyme “A froggy would a wooing go.” There was no wooing, he was strictly against that sort of thing. He read every book on natural history the library contained. None of the books appeared to be missing a frog, and none of them appeared to have gained a Clara.

The Doctor looked round, picked the frog up, estimated where the frog’s nose could conceivably be, closed his eyes and kissed the frog.

Nothing happened. He tried not to look embarrassed. He apologised to the frog. He apologised, he wasn’t sure the TARDIS could translate to frog. He decided never to tell anyone about this, ever.

He did place the frog on his pillow that night, and he did place the frog next to him when he ate. The frog was not Clara, he felt it was better to be sure. And fairy tales were nonsense, but it was better to be sure.

He didn’t in any way just to be sure, kiss the frog again.

He ignored the TARDIS’ objections to the semi-tropical conditions that were now prevalent. There was not an extended argument about circuits, steam, sensitive connections and wiring. There may have been exchanged expletives over escaped crickets. The frog appeared to be content.

Where was Clara?

...............................................................................................................................................

Clara swore in a very unladylike manner and found herself sprawled on quite a fine carpet, covered in an array of books being peered down at by an old man. The man was not the Doctor. 

She looked round the room. She was in a man’s study, it was not the library, it was not the TARDIS. Where was the Doctor?

“Would you perhaps be a friend of my daughter Elizabeth’s? And, I do beg your pardon, and I truly hesitate to mention this, but what happened to your dress?”

Clara blinked, looked down at what she was wearing, glanced at the old man again, and could think of absolutely nothing to say.

“Are you quite all right my dear? You somehow seem to have fallen, but how you suddenly appeared in my study, I have no idea.”

Clara lay still on the floor, she realised she was in quite some discomfort.

The old man returned with a young woman in distinctly Regency dress.

“Elizabeth my dear, is this young lady a friend of yours?” The young lady, who was presumably named Elizabeth regarded Clara with interest, but no recognition.

“I am afraid papa, that I have never seen this lady before in my life. She does seem to be in some distress and could quite possibly be hurt? I will get Mary to help me and we shall take her to my room.”

The man regarded her and nodded. “Do remember Lizzie dear that Mr. Collins will soon be here.”

The old man scowled and shook his head a little sadly.

Clara decided she must have hit her head rather hard, she appeared to be in Longbourn. She was teaching Pride and Prejudice to year 10 again this term. Yes, definitely, she was imagining this, she would just close her eyes, rest and everything would be fine.

Some moments elapsed, a second girl joined Miss Elizabeth. They gently coaxed Clara awake, helped her to stand, and although gaping at what she was wearing refrained from commenting. 

Clara really did feel rather sick.

The girls helped her upstairs and soon she found herself surrounded, three other girls joined the first two, Kitty, Lydia and Jane. Oh good gracious, she really was at Longbourn.

She did what any heroine would do, she fainted.

..............................................................................................................................................

The Doctor was finding the conversational and travelling possibilities offered by the frog quite limited. He wasn’t sure that the TARDIS was telling the truth when she claimed that she couldn’t translate what the frog had to say. 

Eventually the Doctor and the TARDIS agreed that the frog would reside with the Paternoster gang. 

Strax was dissuaded from eating the frog after a rather heated exchange. Strax questioned at length quite how snacks could be guests. 

Madame Vastra also appeared to be considering the culinary opportunities the frog might provide, but she refrained from expressing them. 

Jenny offered the Doctor a sympathetic ear, she did not consider eating the frog.

Returning to the TARDIS the Doctor found himself a little disconsolate. He refused to consider how much he missed Clara. He only allowed himself to think that this was a mystery that needed solving. He had in no way kissed the frog one last time before leaving it in Jenny’s care. He didn’t whisper very softly that he loved her, just in case. Jenny also carefully pretended not to notice.

The Doctor returned the library and commenced to read every single book on the side of library where Clara had disappeared. There were 2348. He could read quickly, very quickly, but it would still take some time.

The TARDIS chided him to eat, and to sleep, and eventually to wash.

He threw the last book on the pile round his feet. 

There was no Clara in any of the books. 

He had lost his impossible girl.

He did not sob. 

Time passed, he visited Clara’s school, her family, her grandmother, her flat. He revisited every place he had ever been to with her, in any of his lives. He found every echo of her in every part of the universe.

He did not find Clara, his Clara.

He returned again to the library, in his travelling and his searching, he had re-read every book, twice. Clara wasn’t in any of the books.

Reluctantly he picked up her bag, her jumper intending to place them in her room and seal the door. As he had sealed the door of every companion who had travelled with him, when they travelled with him no more. 

He inhaled the scent of her that lingered. He didn’t acknowledge the pain in both his hearts.

As he put the bag down on her bed and sank into her chair, her copy of Pride and Prejudice fell from her bag. He looked again at the notes, written from 1796 and published in 1813. He remembered pointing this out to Clara. He didn’t need to re-read the story, he knew it by heart, but he opened the book anyway

He leaned back in Clara’s chair and thoughts of her surrounded him. He began reading.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

His eyes drifted closed before long, exhausted by days, weeks without sleep.

He awoke, head pounding and rubbed his eyes with his long fingers. He sighed and prepared to throw the book on Clara’s bed – he shrugged and decided to finish it, what else was he going to do?

.......................................................................................................................................................

Mrs Bennet was incensed at the presence of another woman in the house. What on earth could Mr Bennet be thinking. It was imperative however insufferable the man might be, that Mr Collins marry one of her daughters. A headstrong, educated, opinionated woman in the house would not create the right impression at all. She endeavoured to place the woman with one of her neighbours, but none of them claimed to know her and all seemed to suddenly have their own friends or relatives staying, so she was compelled to keep this cuckoo.

..............................................................................................................................................................

The Doctor lifted his head – that wasn’t in the text. He found he had skipped a few pages, read back and there, there was his Clara. His hearts lifted a little, he read forward.  
The odious, insufferable, repellent Mr Collins was proposing to Clara, his Clara.  
He put the book down, left the room, turned round, walked back, sat down and picked the book up again.

..............................................................................................................................................................

Clara called out: 

"Dear madam, do not go. I beg you will not go. Mr. Collins must excuse me. He can have nothing to say to me that anybody need not hear. I am going away myself." 

"No, no, nonsense, Clara. I desire you to stay where you are." And upon Clara’s seeming really, with vexed and embarrassed looks, about to escape, she added: "Clara, I insist upon your staying and hearing Mr. Collins." 

Clara would not oppose such an injunction— and a moment's consideration making her also sensible that it would be wisest to get it over as soon and as quietly as possible, she sat down again and tried to conceal, by incessant employment the feelings which were divided between distress and diversion. Mrs. Bennet and Elizabeth walked off, and as soon as they were gone, Mr. Collins began. 

"Believe me, my dear Miss Clara, that your modesty, so far from doing you any disservice, rather adds to your other perfections. You would have been less amiable in my eyes had there not been this little unwillingness; but allow me to assure you, that I have your respected mother's permission for this address. You can hardly doubt the purport of my discourse, however your natural delicacy may lead you to dissemble; my attentions have been too marked to be mistaken. Almost as soon as I entered the house, I singled you out as the companion of my future life. But before I am run away with by my feelings on this subject, perhaps it would be advisable for me to state my reasons for marrying— and, moreover, for coming into Hertfordshire with the design of selecting a wife, as I certainly did." 

The idea of Mr. Collins, with all his solemn composure, being run away with by his feelings, made Clara so near laughing, that she could not use the short pause he allowed in any attempt to stop him further, and he continued, at great length.

It was absolutely necessary to interrupt him now. 

"You are too hasty, sir," she cried. "You forget that I have made no answer. Let me do it without further loss of time. Accept my thanks for the compliment you are paying me. I am very sensible of the honour of your proposals, but it is impossible for me to do otherwise than to decline them." 

"I am not now to learn," replied Mr. Collins, with a formal wave of the hand, "that it is usual with young ladies to reject the addresses of the man whom they secretly mean to accept, when he first applies for their favour; and that sometimes the refusal is repeated a second, or even a third time. I am therefore by no means discouraged by what you have just said, and shall hope to lead you to the altar ere long." 

"Upon my word, sir," cried Clara, "your hope is a rather extraordinary one after my declaration. I do assure you that I am not one of those young ladies (if such young ladies there are) who are so daring as to risk their happiness on the chance of being asked a second time. I am perfectly serious in my refusal. You could not make me happy, and I am convinced that I am the last woman in the world who could make you so. In fact, I am compelled to tell you I am engaged to a Doctor." 

..............................................................................................................................................................

Oh Clara, his Clara, his impossible girl.

The Doctor was aware he may have fainted.

He picked up the book and read to the end, there was no further mention of Clara.

He read it again, and a third time, a fourth, a fifth.

She was really gone.

He threw himself down on Clara’s bed and wept. 

The TARDIS intruded into his mind, forcing him up and out of the room, herding him back to the library. He raged and protested, how may times could he go over the same ground. He was not stubborn.

Entering the library he found the room as disordered as he had left it, not a book remained on any of the shelves – they lay scattered everywhere, open, broken spined. He slumped back in his chair, bowed his head over his folded hands and wept again.

One of the piles of books moved. He didn’t understand, but he didn’t question either. 

He rushed forward, moved the books aside, heedlessly throwing them away from the faint movement.

Clara his Clara, his impossible girl. 

He said nothing, nor did she.

He swept her into his arms and kissed her.

The frog lived happily ever after.

**Author's Note:**

> part of chapter 19 of Pride and Prejudice borrowed and slightly re-written without shame (Mr.Collins is unbelievably long-winded, that's the nature of him - so for the sake of all our sanities, I have cut him short!)
> 
> the frog is borrowed from Grimm's Fairy Tales
> 
> thank you to @wwwhiskas on tumblr for help
> 
> and yes, I could have really dragged the story out, but if you want another Pride and Prejudice, just watch Clara and 12....really


End file.
